NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - A one-year follow-up study of
patients with heart disease found that few are meeting
recommendations for fruit, vegetable and fiber intake, and they
were eating a "disturbing" amount of trans fat, Dr. Yunsheng Ma
and colleagues from the University of Massachusetts Medical
School in Worcester found.

They surveyed 555 people about their eating habits one year
after they had been diagnosed with heart disease using coronary
angiography. All had suffered some type of cardiac event, such
as heart attack, abnormal heart rhythm, or chest pain.

To gauge the quality of their diets, the researchers used
the Alternate Healthy Eating Index (AHEI), which measures
several aspects of heart-healthy eating such as fruit and
vegetable consumption, amount of trans fat consumed, and ratio
of white to red meat eaten.

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On average, patients scored 30.8 on the AHEI, out of a
possible 80. Just 12.4 percent were eating five or more
servings of vegetables a day, while 7.8 percent were eating at
least four servings of fruit each day. Fewer than 8 percent met
recommendations for cereal fiber consumption.

And while public health guidelines recommend getting less
than 0.5 percent of total calories from trans fat, people in
the study consumed an average of 3.41 percent of their calories
in trans fat form.

Just half had exercised for at least 20 minutes at least
once in the past three months.

About 80 percent of people don't go to cardiac
rehabilitation programs after having a heart attack, the
researcher noted, and even if they do such programs often
emphasize exercise over nutrition.

"What this paper indicates is that a lot of work needs to
be done to basically translate what we know to practice and
make sure the patient gets that message," Ma told Reuters
Health in an interview.

He and his colleagues are now investigating ways to
"deliver a message" about the importance of improving diet for
patients with heart disease. Simple messages, like urging
people to eat more fiber, may be more effective than
complicated guidelines, he added.